one more reason for business and the middle class to flee California.
Arnold signed the law to try to get along with Democrat supermajority for bigger budget reasons. He should have vetoed in hindsight, but the Dems likely had the votes to override. Still he should have put that booger on their fingers alone.

In the Brave New World all will be equal and since we here in the “colonies” have further to drive and you blokes don’t have as far to go, petrol prices will be adjusted according to a new International Standard. If CA is our most expensive fuel at $4/gallon and the US is ~37 times larger in area compared to Great Britain then you all will be getting a UN mandated tax to increase your cost to £23 p56 / per litre to pay for the luxury you have of being closer together. Aren’t you glad you brought that to the attention of the politicians and bureaucrats?</sarc>

Many people travel 100+ miles to work every day.
The state is also grounding thousands of big trucks because their engines are outdated. I foresee the capital building becoming a truck parking lot in protest. Park ,lock, and leave. (Already in the works)

I read awhile back where some of the politicians in California were saying that low income people couldn’t afford the new carbon tax on gasoline. It seems their solution was to spend most of the money generated from the tax ( I assume after they take a generous cut for the state) to refund back to low income people in the form of tax credits.

So they want a tax to give to low income people that can’t afford the tax. Wouldn’t it be easier just to not have the tax? Oh wait, that would mean they wouldn’t get their cut of the loot.

they get a refund check when they file their 1040. same for Earned income tax credit. A low income family of 5 can pay $2000 in tax on W2 wages and stll get a a $4000 refund. It’s called redistribution.

As Vice President, Al Gore went to the Senate to end the deadlock by casting the deciding vote which applied the income tax on 85% (versus 50% previously) of Social Security Income. In my opinion the 50% was probably fair for those whose employer paid matching 50% of their SS tax.

Hey Richard. That sounds like Gordon (Pension snatcher) Brown’s Tax Credits here i the UK – Tax all the workers, even the low paid, then make them claim it back! After taking a cut for all the civil servants that had to be recruited to administer it, that is……

It does sound similar Joseph except for the nickname. The Brown in California is known as Governor Moonbeam, who was preceded by The Governator. The politics there read like a bad Hollywood script similar to The Producers.

Venezuela is an obvious exception, where the price of gas is only 15-20 cents per US gallon. The subsidies this costs the state are just another factor, in addition to goofy economics and politics, that are helping to bankrupt this nation.

For what it’s worth, you have my sympathy. Instead of congratulating our capacity to keep at least some of our taxes low, we in the USA are again at fault for caring about the economic impact that high fuel prices play in the welfare of our poorest citizens. It’s no wonder we still price the stuff by the gallon.

However, the UK Government invented the fuel tax escalator that just raised tax a little every year until the next public disorder – then there was some let off until next year when they tried again.
As everything needs to be right to tip people over the edge, we kept going up.

The escalator has been paused for a while due to other pressures on UK household income. But the tax has been empirically pushed to the limit, already.

The fuel tax escalator is actually a good case study in how to raise taxation.

Leigh says: August 29, 2014 at 2:02 am ….. “And Dudley, reducing CO/2 emissions for what?
CO/2’s up and temperatures are down. If there is no warming, why are we reducing CO/2 with a tax?
The original excise on petrol was supposed to pay for road construction and maintenance. So why add another one? Take away the taxes (excise, CO/2 and GST) and petrol is cheap.”

As I pointed out, you need high taxes on fuels to pay for the roads. The current excise which is supposed to pay for the Interstate and other highways are totally insuffient so that the Highway Trust Fund has run out of money. With the proceeds from this tax the California government can provide money to cities and counties to help them with repairs to roads, bridges, etc.

The reason that current taxes have not done what they are supposed to do in fixing roads and bridges is that governments (of all colours) have been frightened of the voter reaction if fuel excise is raised – just see the comments on this site. So the fuel excise has been kept down. And add the fact that as traffic grows, more and more maintenance is needed. And to top that, the real value of the excise has decreased due to inflation. Your dollar of 25 years ago can probably now only buy what used to cost 25 cents. Check CPI changes over the last 25 years.

So the needed tax increase is hidden in a “carbon reduction tax”. Like it!

Dudley, I wasn’t aware that the money would be used for road projects. I know that Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County have instituted 1/2% additional sales tax in the past, which they have used for road projects in lieu of raising the gas tax.

tango says: August 29, 2014 at 12:19 am “your lucky in Australia you will pay from $1.60 to $2.00 a LT”.
Actually the local price has recently ranged from 142.7 to 163.9 cts per litre. Excise is 38.7 cents per litre, and stupid politicians are screaming about an increase of about 1.0 cents per litre.

Just think that while the tax is nominally going to assist you in reducing CO2 emissions, what it will really do is to provide money to pay for the roads you have. Think – could be worse – our local rates or sales taxes could have increased instead. You’ll just have to take – and enjoy – public transport. Thank your lucky stars that SF still has its tram system, and Los Angeles is busy putting back light rail and streetcars, while San Diego and Sacramento aready have light rail systems.

Aussie prices at AUD $5.60 / gallon (around USD $5.30) – if you think the tax the government takes is really going on anything other than feathering their own nests, and paying for a ridiculously bloated government, you should have a look around our capital city Canberra sometime. Acre after acre of brand new housing estates.

Eric, at $1.50 litre multiplied by 4.55 ( litres in 1 gallon)
I reckon its closer to $6.80 a gallon.
About in the middle of the US and England.
And Dudley, reducing CO/2 emissions for what?
CO/2’s up and temperatures are down.
If there is no warming, why are we reducing CO/2 with a tax?
The original excise on petrol was supposed to pay for road construction and maintenance.
So why add another one?
Take away the taxes (excise, CO/2 and GST) and petrol is cheap.

Don’t forget about the GST (consumption tax or VAT) on top of the excise tax. And there’s there is “world parity price tax” on local production and then there’s the taxes the oil companies and forecourt operators pay on profits and earnings.
Today Melbourne prices were $1.38 a litre for unleaded. which is around US$ 5.24 for a US Gallon. Less for Ethanol.

Gesture politics at its worst. Whilst it will have no effect on CO2 it will weaken California’s economy, drive employers away and cost jobs.

It is hard, but not impossible, to find an honest politician but even some of those seem to have been inveigled into the alarmists’ parallel universe where the GIGO from models is more real than real-world factual data.

Far too many of the world’s poor and starving suffer daily at the hands of these self-glorifying and self-styled ‘Eco-warriors’ who put their religious belief in AGW ahead of any other.

I moved from UK to US in 1998. At that time in California gas was $1.20/USgal. Up the road in Washington State it was under $1/USgal. I saved around $250/mth out of my salary, almost enough to cover groceries. I moved to New Zealand in 2013 and when I left gas cost 4x that (+$4/USgal). I now pay around $10/USgal equiv ). I just had to cut down on the groceries!!:(

We’ll, I do agree. However, I still need to travel to work to earn a living before I can even think about what’s left for groceries. Maybe I need to think about alternatives. I have a neighbour who chops down his trees to keep warm. I could follow his lead as I see a lot of folks doing the same. Need to get in quick as the local council is looking to ban the new install of wood burning stoves!!!

I remember going on vacation out through the Western half of the US in the early 70’s and saw 10cent/gallon gas wars in TX, OK, NM and AZ. When I got my license gas was 32 cents a gallon… less than half of what CA’s new tax is!

I remember in California gas was 23 cents, unless you wanted to upgrade to Ethyl, which was 27 cents.
when the oil embargo hit in the mid 70’s we were paying 50 cents, that is if you wanted to wait in the long lines that would stretch for blocks around the station.

Gas tax? Talk about regressive! You have people with the carbon footprint that a 10,000 square foot house implies, and this impacts them nearly none at all, on a percentage basis. Meanwhile the brunt of the tax (percentage-wise) is hoisted squarely on the shoulders of those people who invariably have the smallest carbon footprint – – all in the name of reducing CO2! Congratulations on that logic. That logic is nearly as good as the logic that says stop them from using coal, so they go and cut down forests for fuel – – for the sake of the environment.

68 cents per gallon? Call that a tax?
Here in the UK we pay fuel duty on our petrol, which more than doubles the cost of the basic product. We are then charged value added tax at 20% on the total cost, i.e. we are being made to pay a tax on a tax.
Now that’s a government who knows how to screw the driving public…

There have been plenty of “climate change” predictions over the years and most have eventually been documented as flops. Now I’m curious. Has there actually been a single one that has taken place? “Climate change” activists are welcome to contribute. Please.

World sea ice is increasing
Some, not all, glaciers are shrinking (Rebound – whatever that means- from the LIA)
The world has warmed due to the rebound from the LIA (see above)
The temp records are fixed – proved beyond dispute many times here on wuwt – including the 2012 ‘gamechanger’ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/

Unless the CA tax excludes the trucking industry, all semi-trucks will have to pay the tax. Most use the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) along with a “base” tax jurisdiction. See CA’s FAQ if you need more:http://www.boe.ca.gov/sptaxprog/mciftafaqs.htm

Simply put, everything in CA will increase in price and not just the fuel put into the family car. One unknown is whether campanies that do lots of online sales (think Amazon) will start seperating shipping costs by state. If they don’t, then that means non-California residents will be footing part of the bill for the California carbon taxing silliness. For example, will Prime Amazon customers pay more or will Amazon eat the difference?

Over time residents will start demanding higher salaries so that they can afford to buy groceries again. This will force companies to start charging more to make up for the new expenses.
As a result more companies will decide that the cost and hassle of being in California just isn’t worth it.

If you look at Amazon Prime pricing carefully, you will discover that it is (at a minimum) higher when you log on to your Prime Account than when you shop annonymously…. I would think that the price that appears on your Prime account will soon factor in higher delivery costs by location, if it doesn’t already.

I looked at that link and I saw a Quote from California state senator Bob Huff. “You’re enacting policies to make California unnecessarily expensive, drive people into poverty and then propose new government programs to subsidize their life in poverty”.

This is fantastic. Anything I can do to further California’s insanity just let me know. Petition drives…whatever. The anti-civilization legislation that is routinely enacted in that state is mind numbing and still the Boxers and Pelosi’s and the boneheads in Sacramento keep getting reelected. Nothing better than bankrupt ideology on display. California gets the leaders they deserve. Good for you California save the planet.

This is what the government calls a win-win tax. If CO2 levels drop as a result of this tax then the primary goal has been reached. But if CO2 levels go up and tax revenue also goes up then the secondary goal has been reached. Arnold was brilliant.

In Canada many folks with diesel cars and trucks run them using home heating oil. It’s just diesel fuel without the road tax added after all. Some rural gas stations illegally sell home heating oil at the pumps. Sweet.

Nowadays in Cairo you could likely get away with wearing a sidearm and keeping a full-auto AK in the house, to protect your family, without begging and subtly buying with influence hoplophobic bureaucrats for permission. Rent is probably cheaper too. If the high speed internet access is good, sounds like a great idea.

Just keep the RPG’s in a closet on a high shelf, those are for special occasions.

tesla S costs about $80,000. tesla gets a gov credit of about $30,000 per car sold. Without those tax subsidies from the middle class, those well-off buyers of a Tesla would be paying almost $110,000 for that overpriced sedan. welfare for the uber rich green liberal. No one has a Tesla as their only car either. It is just rich kid toy to show off to friends and neighbors.

There are some places that don’t rape you too bad on fuel costs. I live in Penang, Malaysia. I’m previously from Seattle about 12 years ago which is very car-unfriendly. Over here we pay 0.64USD per liter so that works out to 2.45US per gallon.

But import cars face a tax of 100%-200% over the cost of the car when imported. So a Lexus RX350 runs about 107,000USD to purchase.

Yes.
The 2010 election season is ramping up! In California, those who envision a more sustainable future are paying attention! Proposition 23 is on the ballet with the goal of suspending California’s ground-breaking Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).

Not only did they wish it, they confirmed it when they didn’t vote down its repeal.
In other news, the IRS / Administration doesn’t want it reported how many people want to leave / relocate out of these type of conditions.

Interestingly, we motorists in the UK also pay a ‘greeny inspired climate tax’ to prevent the world from boiling up to unprecedented levels. This taxation is in addition to petrol duty. It’s called annual ‘vehicle excise duty’ (VED or road tax), and is based solely on the volume of CO2 spewing from a car’s exhaust pipe.

Ironically, my 1998 2.5L V6 (potential classic) pays £238.00 pa – which is £47 less than the £285.00 VED than my wife’s 2006 1.6L 4 cylinder pays. This is because the current scale of VED charges (based on CO2 emissions) only applies to vehicles manufactured after March 2001.

All this CO2 nonsense doesn’t, of course, take into account driving style, recent age of the car or the annual mileage of a vehicle. So, a 2014 registered 1000 cc Fiat that is thrashed to the limit and does 50,000 miles in a year pays less VED than a 2002 registered 4.5L V8 Range Rover that is driven sedately and covers 7,000 miles in a year. The taxation law is fickle.

In a Democracy the people drive themselves to the polls, vote, and then take orders. In a Dictatorship, the people don’t have to worry about the inconvenience of driving to the polls to vote, saving gas.

California’s Liberal Democratic lawmakers have already began their damage-control campaigns. A letter addressed to to CARB’s chair-heathen, Mary Nichols signed by at least 16 assembly members across the state, desperately pleas for a “reconsideration” of The cap-and-trade program that they originally supported. Of course the passing of the buck onto the RINO former Governorator should be an easy sell to their uneducated, low-income, and mostly immigrant constituencies. Continuing the perpetual corruption, it seems Governor Moonbeam is up to his own shenanigans as well.
“The letter highlighted something not well known: ‘AB32 does not mandate that CARB create a program that generates revenue for the state and it was not intended to be a funding mechanism for massive, new state efforts at GHG [Greenhouse Gas] reduction.’
Yet in the new state budget for fiscal year 2014-15, which began on July 1, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature grabbed $250 million of cap-and-trade funds for the controversial high-speed rail program. That’s 25 percent of an expected $1 billion in cap-and-trade revenues.”

Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.

What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.

“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study………………………

Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!

The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:

Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.

146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.

A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.

Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!

This is a tax hike, nothing more. More specifically a use-tax hike, the more you use the more you pay the government. They can dress it up as “Global Warming feel good we are saving the world”, but the bottom line is it just more taxation, this will have zero effect on the climate.

For anyone interested, here is the list of combined state and federal gasoline and diesel tax assessments by state. Hawaii and California (as stated elsewhere here) are the highest, and Alaska and New Jersey (New Jersey?) are the lowest. California’s neighbor, Arizona, comes in at the low end of the list and 37.4 cents per gallon.

Tucson AZ: unleaded regular 87 octane was about $3.22/gal Thursday. driving up to the north rim of the Grand Canyon this 3day weekend about 900 miles RT. my hybrid gets 37 mpg so my fun will cost roughly $80 in gas. beautiful scenary for hiking and trail running, priceless

The 20- 30 cent higher cost for diesel is probably due to the ultra low sulfur mandate from the EPA which required significant investment in the refining side of the business which many smaller refineries could not afford. The other factor may be competition at least where I live since very few stations offer diesel.

I looked at a diesel car but could not justify the extra cost especially with the much higher fuel cost.

Yes, but two refineries can’t offset the progressive politics similar to the tax and spend policies in California. To be fair, California is one of the major oil producing states while I suspect Hawaii must import all crude via sea.

Love to see the liberal heartbeat of the USA (California) beat their voters over the head with the policies that they pushed to get elected. Unfortunately the innocent voters who tried to keep them out of office get beat also.

I have been purchasing gas in the SE USA for several weeks @ just over $3.00 / gal. Yesterday it was less than $3.00 many places.

About 25 years ago when I occasionally bought gas for close to $1.00 a gallon (once for $ 0.87 when traveling through Kansas) I was in favor of increasing the federal tax on gasoline in order to pay for repair of our crumbling infrastructure of bridges, tunnels, and levees. Fast forward. Gasoline now costs $3.00 to $4.00 a gallon, the tax was not increased, most of the repair was not done, and now the California tax increase will pay for what!?

Wow, so glad to live in the boondocks of central Alberta. Just heard Premier Christy Clark of British Columbia bragging about her carbon tax (hello Mr. Eiger). Good for her. Regular fuel is C$1.50 per litre in Vancouver, C$1.35 to C$1.40 per litre in most of the interior although there are a few stations in Price George have a little gas war where the price is C$1.25. If you live near the US border, you can slip across the line and buy for C$1.08 per litre.

In Alberta, the price ranges from C$1.10 to C$1.16 at the moment, though it will likely jump by 10 cents a litre this long weekend at most places. A lot cheaper to run a tractor out here.

Around here, many stations do post the amount of tax on the pumps if people care to look. Not that we can do anything about it. Death and taxes.

Obviously, being a California import, I was completely against AB-32, as well as the suite of laws passed since to bolster and expand its premises (SB-375, SB-535, SB-1136, AB-26, AB-278, AB-904, AB-1532 etc.).

However in 2010, Californian’s were given a chance to stall AB-32 under Proposition 23. They smacked it down. Now I am completely opposed to doing anything at all to roll any of this madness back even a smidgen. While I am still in California, I will join any group and actively proselytize to not only prevent any changes to this madness but exhort politicians to do even more, as much as possible.

Why? Because the stupid should hurt.

I won’t be here much longer though. In fact, my car should be sold within the week (an SRT8). I will take my RAM 2500 and my off-road teardrop trailer and run the backtrails of the west I know so well for as long as I can hold out or until I can find a job in another state.

Californian’s are like granola. What aren’t fruits and nuts are flakes.

Proposition 23 ” paid for by Texas oil companies”,the tv ads claimed.
After the election the SF Chronical did a story that the anti 23 ads were actually paid for by Morgan Stanley.
Ironic because 60 Minutes called them the “worlds largest oil company”

Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
I have written about this issue before and now others are joining the chorus. However, the question is any one listening? The people I ask, are clueless about AB-32 and the gas price increases. Readers of this blog should know about the price increase, but what about their friends and neighbors?

All the oil produced will still get burned. The decline in demand (which will probably be very small) in California will be matched by the increase in demand by the rest of the country. The politicians have no understanding of energy, science, or economics. Some energy use will just get shifted from the drivers in California to the projects funded by the tax. Most likely the free market would make more efficient use of the energy than the government intervention, but the follow up analysis won’t be done. These taxes and regulations are really driven by the politician’s (and the big money psychopaths controlling them) infatuation with government power. Every problem real or imagined is a convenient excuse to take power from the people and give power to the government.

Anybody ever thoght about alternatives? Ethanol, LNG(Liquid Natural Gas) or LPG(Liquefied Petroleum Gas)??? When you run a car t h a t much as 100miles/day commuting, you certainly wouldn’t mind spending approx. USD 4k on a conversion to LPG- and you get it for less. Many forklifts already have it! The dutch, namely Prins, are making top-quality high-end kits.

During the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, which caused a scarcity of gasoline and diesel in certain countries, many light/medium duty trucks and forklifts in the U.S. were converted to LPG using fuel regulators supplied by Impco. The converted trucks were commonly called the gutless wonders because of their lack of horsepower, but the forklifts relying on torque rather than speed did well and are the preferred method of fuel to this day.

There are Class 8 trucks being sold in the U.S. currently that are run on LNG. I don’t know if they have the same issue of being underpowered as the previous light/medium trucks did with LPG, but both LPG and LNG are considerably cheaper per gallon than gasoline or diesel in the U.S.